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File Submitted: 31 Jan 2012
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Author: Allen, Roland
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MISSIONARY SURVEY AS AN AID TO INTELLIGENT CO-OPERATION IN FOREIGN MISSIONS
BY
ROLAND ALLEN, M.A. SOMETIME S.P.G. MISSIONARY IN NORTH CHINA AUTHOR OF "MISSIONARY METHODS, ST. PAUL'S OR OURS," ETC.
AND
THOMAS COCHRANE, M.B., C.M. LATE PRINCIPAL OF UNION MEDICAL COLLEGE, PEKING, AND HON. SECRETARY OF THE LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT, LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY
1920
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE IMPORTANCE OF A DOMINANT PURPOSE.
The modern demand for intelligent co-operation The same demand in relation to Foreign Missions The need for a definition of purpose The failure of our present reports in this respect Is definition of purpose desirable? It is necessary for formulation of policy Societies with limited incomes cannot afford to pursue every good object The admission of diverse purposes has blurred the purpose of Medical Missions The admission of diverse purposes has confused the administration of Educational Missions The admission of diverse purposes has distracted Evangelistic Missions Hence the absence of unity in the work Hence the tendency to support details rather than the whole The need for a dominant purpose and expression of relations The need for a statement of factors which govern action The need for a missionary survey which expresses the facts in relation This demand is not unreasonable
CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.
1. All survey is properly governed by the purpose for which it is made The purpose decides what is to be included, what excluded A scientific survey is a survey of selected factors This is not to be confused with the collection of facts to prove a theory The collection of facts is independent of the conclusions which may be drawn 2. The survey proposed is a missionary survey The difference between medical and educational surveys and missionary survey 3. The survey proposed is designed to embrace the work of all Societies 4. Definition of aim necessarily suggests a policy We have not hesitated to set out that policy We make criticism easy 5. Survey should provide facts in relation to an aim, so as to guide action 6. Twofold aspect of survey--survey of state, survey of position Survey is therefore a continual process 7. Possible objections to method proposed-- (i) The information asked for statistical All business and organised effort is based on statistics Every Society publishes statistics (ii) The admission of estimates The value of estimates (iii) The difficulty of many small tables Why burden the missionary with the working out of proportions? The tables should assist the missionary in charge (iv) The objection that we cannot obtain all the information Partial knowledge the guide of all human action (v) The tables contain items at present unknown
CHAPTER III.
SURVEY OF THE STATION AND ITS DISTRICT.
The Work to be Done, and the Force to Do it.
We begin with survey of the station and its district If the station exists to establish the Church in a definite area then we can survey on a territorial basis The definition of the area involves a policy I. When the area is defined we can distinguish work done and work to be done, in terms of cities, towns, and villages; in terms of population The meaning of "Christian constituency" The reasons for adopting it Example of table, and of the impression produced by it Example of value of proportions Tables of proportions The difficulty of procuring this information The value of the labour expended in procuring it II. The force at work The permanent and transitory elements (a) The foreign force The use of merely quantitative expressions Such tables essential for deciding questions of reinforcement (
The native force Reasons for putting total Christian constituency in the first place The Communicants. The paid workers. The unpaid workers The difficulty in this classification The interest of these tables lies in the proportions Summary But we need to know something of capacity of the native force (1) Proportion of Communicants The importance of this proportion in itself In relation to the work to be done (2) Proportion of paid workers to Christian constituency and to Communicants The difficulty of appreciating the meaning of this proportion It must be checked by (a) the proportion of unpaid voluntary workers ( The standard of wealth (3) The contribution to missionary work in labour and money (4) The literacy of the Christian constituency The importance of widespread knowledge of the Bible The importance of Christians having a wider knowledge than their heathen neighboursCHAPTER IV.
THE EMPHASIS LAID UPON DIFFERENT TYPES OF WORK.
I. Work amongst men and women respectively We first distinguish men, wives, and single women among the Foreign Missionaries The reasons for applying the distinction between men and women to the Native Force II. The different classes in the population chiefly reached by the mission III The different races and religions Emphasis upon one class or race or religion is no proper basis for adverse criticism of the mission IV. The emphasis laid on evangelistic, medical, and educational work respectively The difficulty of distinguishing medical, educational, and evangelistic missionaries The reason why grades need not here be distinguished V. Sunday Schools-- The diverse character of Sunday Schools The table proposed
CHAPTER V.
THE MEDICAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.
The tendency to treat medical and educational work as distinct from evangelistic Medical and educational boards and their surveys The difficulty of determining the aim of the medical mission First of medical missions as designed to meet a distinct medical need Two tables designed to present the medical force in relation to area and population The necessity of considering non-missionary medical work in this connection The extent of the work done in the year Then of the medical mission as designed to assist evangelistic work (i) The extent to which evangelists work with the medicals Caution as regards the use of this table (ii) The extent to which medicals assist the evangelists outside the institutions (iii) The extent to which the evangelistic influence of the hospital can be traced
CHAPTER VI.
EDUCATIONAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.
The difficulty of determining the aim of educational missions The difficulty presented by different grades and standards The reason for excluding Colleges and Normal Schools at this stage First of the educational mission as designed to meet a distinct educational need Two tables designed to present the educational work in relation to area and population The necessity of considering non-missionary educational work The existence of non-missionary schools may either increase the need for missionary schools or decrease it The extent to which education is provided for the better educated and the more illiterate The extent to which education is provided for boys and girls, for Christian and non-Christian scholars The extent to which mission schools receive Government grants throws light on their character and purpose The extent to which education is provided for illiterate adults The importance of this The importance of the distinction between Christians and non-Christians in this table Then of the educational mission as designed to assist evangelistic work (i) The extent to which evangelists work with the educationalists in schools Caution needed in the use of this table (ii) The extent to which educationalists work with evangelists outside schools The importance of the work done by educationalists outside the schools (iii) The immediate evangelistic results of education given The difficulty The table proposed The support given by the Natives to medical and educational work
CHAPTER VII.
CO-OPERATION.
The importance of the relation between the different parts of the mission The relations already expressed in earlier tables The chief difficulty lies in the relationship between medicals and educationalists The importance of medical work in schools The table showing the work of medicals in connection with schools The importance of educational work in hospitals The table showing the work of educationalists in hospitals Summary of co-operation between evangelists, medicals, and educationalists
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NATIVE CHURCH.
The end of the station, a Native Church This end a condition into which the Church must be growing Survey must therefore deal with the Native Church The reason for beginning with self-support The meaning of self-supporting Churches In rare cases it means independence of external support In most cases it means attainment of an arbitrary standard In most cases it does not represent the power of the people to supply their own needs In most cases it is not sure evidence of growing liberality Nevertheless we must begin by considering the self-supporting Churches We ask for proportion of self-supporting Churches This will not reveal the power of the Churches to stand alone We inquire then the proportion of inquirers in self-supporting Churches We inquire then the proportion of unpaid workers in self-supporting Churches Where self-supporting Churches are not recognised we inquire--
(i) Power of Christians to conduct their own services (ii) Power to order Church government (iii) Power to provide expenses of Church organisation
CHAPTER IX.
SURVEY OF DISTRICTS WHERE TWO OR MORE SOCIETIES ARE AT WORK. SURVEY OF MISSIONS WITH NO DEFINED DISTRICTS.
I. The possibility of united survey by missionaries of two or more Societies The evil of ignoring the work of others Survey is concerned with facts not with ecclesiastical prejudices The difficulty of obtaining the facts The use of estimates II. The mission which has no defined district--A general expression of the purpose of such a mission In its widest terms survey of the work of such a mission would involve survey of the whole state of society In its narrower terms it is survey of a mission establishing a Church In this case most of the preceding tables could be used, omitting proportions to area and population Then we could see force at work Then we could see forms of work Then we could place the mission in a survey of the Country
CHAPTER X.
SURVEY OF THE WORK IN A PROVINCE.
The mission station is not an isolated unit The relationship of station with station is recognised So the relationship of all missions in a country is recognised We can then consider the work of a mission station in relation to all mission work done in the Province or Country Considered in relation to the larger area, impressions produced by the earlier tables may have to be revised The first necessity is to gain a view of the whole work in the Country The difficulty presented by capitals and other large cities I. The items proposed as necessary for such a general view-- (1) The work to be done; a bare quantitative expression in terms of population, perhaps also in terms of cities, towns, and villages unoccupied This expression ought not to suggest that the work to be done is to be done by the foreigners (2) The Foreign Force at work in relation to the work to be done is larger than that presented by returns from all mission stations The Native Force also is more than the sum of the station district returns (3) Different forms of work; one table revealing proportion of Missionaries, Native Workers, Foreign Funds, and Native Contributions employed in different forms of work One table of results A serious flaw in this table (4) The extent to which different classes, etc., are reached. One table including the station returns with the addition of special missions which work among special classes in the whole Province or Country (5) Self-support. One table showing the relation of the native contribution to the total salaries of all paid native evangelistic workers II. To this must be added tables of students in training for different forms of mission work First the relative proportion of students in training for different types of work Then of each more particularly-- (1) Evangelistic Confusion of nomenclature prevents more than a rough classification (2) Educational: divided roughly into four classes (3) Medical: divided into three classes These tables are prophetic of line of advance in the near future The question of perseverance III. Then the Educational Institutions excluded from the district survey must be added to the sum of the station returns to show the relation of the educational work to the population of the larger area The importance of the relation of the higher to the lower grade institutions The educational work of non-missionary agencies must also be considered IV. Medical work needs only the addition of provincial hospitals and non-missionary medical work V. Two other subjects claim attention here, literature and industrial work The difficulty of dealing with literature. It needs special treatment Two brief tables suggested The difficulty of dealing with industrial work still greater For industrial missions, other than those which are really educational, we suggest three tables VI. Union work
CHAPTER XI.
THE RELATION OF THE STATION TO THE WORLD.
A world-wide work can only be conducted on world-wide principles These world-wide principles must govern the work in every part, however small No country, however large, can be an isolated unit from missionary point of view How shall we gain a view of this large whole? We suggest that four tables would suffice for our purpose:-- (1) A table showing the force at work in relation to population (2) A table designed to reveal something of the character and power of the force (3) A table showing the relative strength expended in evangelistic, medical, and educational work (4) A table showing the extent to which the native Christians support existing work This is only a tentative suggestion proposed to invite criticism
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